


The World Waits for No Man

by kageillusionz



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Charles has a lot to get off his chest, Cuban Missile Crisis, Dark!Charles, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, M/M, Post Beach, So much bitterness, Soliloquy, Suicidal Thoughts, Thought Projection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-06 01:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageillusionz/pseuds/kageillusionz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As soon as Charles is discharged from hospital post Cuba, all he wants is to be left alone to his own devices. The boys want to help and cheer him up but Charles begins to lock them out, neglects to take care of himself and begins drinking his woes away.</p><p>Emma pays him a surprise visit and then informs Magneto of Charles injury and the consequences that came with that one bullet. Magneto checks in on Charles, only to find Charles a bitter, defeated version of his younger chipper self, who feels there’s no point on fighting any more and who won’t listen anyone, not even Erik.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Waits for No Man

**Author's Note:**

> I swear wading through my tumblr dash is like playing Russian Roulette with gay porn and being enabled by prompts. This one is for fuckjamesyouliferuiner and the prompt can be found [here](http://fuckjamesyouliferuiner.tumblr.com/post/45794573466/it-means-youre-fucked-when-charles-comes-back) along with the gorgeous photoset of James. Hope you like!
> 
> This is also partially for [ikeracity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/pseuds/ikeracity). Look a carrot!
> 
> My undying love goes to [**afrocurl**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl) for betaing, without whom this would not be half as good as it is now. Any lingering mistakes are my own and do please let me know if you see any.

Charles Xavier knows that they mean well - the boys, that is - and he is touched by their concern.  After the Cuban Missile Crisis and Moira returned to the CIA, it is just the four of them living in close proximity at Westchester.

There are also days when Charles cannot deal with their seemingly endless search for hope, for the silver lining in the situation.  He feels all of their emotions as clearly as if they were his own; he is as caged as Hank feels in his new body, as antsy as Sean exhibits in his room and as angry as Alex at the circumstances that lead Charles to his new found state.

As a functioning adult well into his mid-thirties, Charles knows he can take care of himself.  But he has been lax as of late and sometimes he just chooses not to when the only thing that keeps him company at night is the misery that claws deep inside his heart.

He hallucinates sometimes, the yearning cultivating in projections that follow him around Westchester in the form of the two people that are currently absent in his life; they have been for quite some time now.   Cloaked in shadows, they skulk in the corners of his bedroom and their eyes tracking his every motion, but they always remain silent.

In bed, after levering himself out of his wheelchair, Charles tries hard to ignore their presence and tries even harder to forget the moment that changed his life forever; he has to stare at the physical reminder for the rest of his life.

( He takes a finger of scotch that night before he goes to bed. But he cannot sleep and the shadows continue to taunt him. )

The boys continue to worry about him; their thoughts loud and tinged with concern so strong that it makes his head pound. They have plans to coax him out of his new ground level bedroom or the study and lock up all the alcohol in the tallest cupboard possible. It had been a solid idea but Charles ruthlessly gets what he wants in the end, no matter which boy he decides to use.

He doesn't need fresh air and Charles likes to think that of all the people in the world, he would know himself best.

He doesn’t need their charity.  All he wants is for them to stop pitying him.

And with a liberal amount of telepathy, Charles makes them forget their great schemes and turns himself invisible to them:

Sean passes him in the corridors as if Charles is but a ghost in the house.  Alex makes tea for two but can never seem to recall why he made an extra cup or who it was for. Hank walks in and then out of Charles’ study like he does not remember why he needed to be there in the first place when there are experiments running down at the lab.

Charles likes the temporary quiet and prefers it that way so he could brood and think of the better days.

That is, until he has no choice but to make them aware of his presence again: when Charles finally indulges his empty stomach, he eats just barely enough to exist with a bite of breakfast, a mouthful of lunch and a swallow of dinner. Sean always keeps the food hot and dutifully ferries the mostly untouched plate away with a forlorn look. He does not complain when he stokes the fire in whichever room Charles happens to be in at the time since winter is a most malevolent mistress.

And then there is the time when Charles neglects to keep the site of the catheter clean and ends up with an infection. Alex drives him to the nearest hospital and sits with him as they wait patiently for the doctor’s prognosis. Charles hates hospitals with the acrid scent of death and despair that clings to the building, the sheets, the people and he leaves the place in a terrible mood after the doctors sort him out.  Alex quietly takes on the duty of making sure Charles' bag is empty thereafter.

And then the incident when he accidentally overbalances and spills onto the Persian carpet with a heavy thump, unable to crawl back into his wheelchair because he is weak and doesn't have the energy to do it.  Charles begrudgingly has no choice but to ask Hank for help to move his battered and useless body back into its new prison. Hank remains quiet the entire time it takes to wheel Charles back to the study and kindly pretends not to see when Charles’ shoulders shake from his sobs.

( He swallows a shot of vermouth. There is dust settling on the chess set by the sofa and Charles pays no heed to the whisper of past conversation above the hearty crackle coming from the fireplace. )

He hates becoming reliant on someone. He hates this feeling of helplessness. He hates this house, as if time had suddenly been suspended during the time he spent at the hospital. He hates this feeling of being isolated from civilisation, living in a house with more ghosts than people. He hates becoming an invalid. He hates how empty the corridors are. He hates feeling.  He hates.

He hates living.

He is so tired of everything.

Charles spends days like that staring at the peeling wallpaper of this unfamiliar bedroom lying on the bed.  Even though he does nothing, he is completely drained and defeated.  And only then does he turn to the projection in the corner and whispers, “you have won.  You were right.”

They don’t celebrate nor do they approach him.

They are spectators to the demonstration of Charles’ self-destruction.

( He drinks a glass of brandy, and sometimes Charles' body shuts down from exhaustion to grant him a few merciful hours of rest. He sleeps fitfully and when he wakes, he is aware of the wishing for darkness that lasts for all eternity. )

Time holds no meaning any longer and he hardly notices when spring turns to winter again not when the curtains are drawn tight all the time. Charles has not kept up with the news and he is surprised to read that they are in the middle of the Vietnam War. He doesn’t consciously keep tabs on the boys or even wonder why there are suddenly new minds wandering the halls of his mansion.

Charles ventures out of his room little, and when he does, it is for more liquor which Sharon Xavier has kindly hidden all around the mansion. His incursions do not last very long - an hour at the most – until he returns and barricades himself behind solid oak.

Once upon a time, Charles made the conscious choice to stay away from walking down the same path of Sharon Xavier. The majority of his memories about his mother are of a woman who indulged in drink to keep her woes at bay, as a means of escape.

But often, Charles finds, the reasons to stay off that path are difficult to remember when the alcohol numbs him like nothing else could.

The new strangers at Westchester learn to never ask any questions about who Charles Xavier is or why the broken sobs of someone crying ricochet in the corridors during the early hours of the morning.

( He downs a tumbler of vodka and doesn't even feel the icy fingers of another combing through his mind. He doesn't care and succumbs to that feeling. )

Then one night she appears in his mind dressed in white, finally breeching his shoddy mental defences like a spark of light inside his head.

She tuts with a sneer and twirls his thoughts around her little finger. She is more than capable of destroying him and completely unscrupulous in the methods she employs.  It is easy to manipulate him now, in the current state that he is in, that even a child with no control over their telepathy could do it.

"And to think you used to be someone I would call my worthy adversary.  How the mighty have fallen, Charles Xavier."

Charles smiles bitterly and replies, "Miss Frost. I can hardly say it is a pleasure to meet you in such a manner. I may be inebriated but even now you are out of my league."

She gives him a sharp glare that would have made a lesser man wince. Charles may have lost the use of his legs but he still has his pride.

He sends her out of his head with a mental flick and laughs and laughs and laughs until he wakes up alone in his bedroom, the muscles in his abdomen protesting at the work out.

There is a half-finished bottle of gin sitting in the crook of his arm that Charles easily smuggles past the boys.

He is oddly in a good mood after Emma Frost's visit and sits out on the back porch with only his bottle for companionship. It is cold out here but he hardly registers the temperature, exhaling plumes of hot air and watching the condensation dissipate.  It amuses him.

His cheer dissipates as soon as he hears footsteps behind him and someone’s gruff voice breaks the silence to call out his name: "Charles."

It is the voice of someone he once considered a friend. Charles lets out a sigh through his nose and closes his eyes. Is it a person behind him or has his projections finally gathered the courage to speak to him? If he ignores it, the projections will go away.  It has worked so far and Charles was not going to stop trying.

"Charles," the voice says sternly, accompanied by the low vibration in the frame of his wheelchair that causes the gin to slosh around in its bottle. This is a new: his projection finally affecting material objects and gaining a voice. 

Charles sends out his telepathy like a whip and feels his mental queries slip around that one space as if there is no one there. The sensation is vaguely familiar but Charles cannot place where or how he knows. The projections do not exist and there is no one standing behind him that Charles could hurt or manipulate.

"Stop it. This is not like you at all."

There is the pressure of someone there but Charles does not know who, even though he can make a highly educated guess just from the voice alone.

He has been wondering how long it would take for his steep descent into madness.

"Charles..." There is a brief moment of hesitation before the voice pleads, "Look at me."

He keeps his eyes shut and his voice remains steady. Charles is oddly proud of that fact when he addresses the voice.   "Did you finally come back for round two, Erik?  Have you come to take away my arms this time?"

Confusion colours the voice's reply: "What on earth are you talking about, Charles?"

"But why stop there?" Charles continues as if the voice had not said anything, "Why don't you just take my life as well?"

The voice sounds hurt and aghast. "I would never!  My friend, just..."

He cuts the voice off, chuckling bitterly. "Such nerve calling me ‘your friend’ that I can't help but be a little cynical. You left me on a beach after putting a bullet to my spine. Injuries of that nature are notoriously difficult to heal at the best of times so it wasn’t a surprise to anyone when I lost the use of my legs.

“Did you know how long it took for us to get off that beach?  Did you know how long I spent there as my back burned like the fires of hell? Did you know how many hours I spent in operations, in hospital, in physical therapy?”

Charles doesn't even notice when the tears slip down his cheek, not until a chill wind makes the tear tracks known upon his skin.  “I confess my body has changed since the last time we lay in bed together. Maybe we can get together some time and catalogue all the scars and the muscle atrophy."

"I came as soon as Emma told me. Charles, I had no idea."  The voice had the gall to sound apologetic.

His heart is beating a mile a minute against his ribcage and Charles cannot stop the wave of words coming out of his mouth even if he tried. It doesn't matter anyway since this was all in his head. "That’s just it. You take my sister and never thought to return once to Westchester, to see how _your friend_ is faring.”

“Charles.  I- ”

He does not give the voice the opportunity to plead its case. “I can hear them thinking: 'it's a shame for someone so young to be like this' and 'he will never be able to have children' and 'I can't get a hold of his sister, is there anyone else I can call for you, Mr. Xavier?' The pity is the worst, Erik.”

The voice sounds strangled, as if a number of emotions were clogged in its throat and all fighting to get out simultaneously. "If I had known, I would have stayed and been there for you. I would never have left."

And that's the crux of it, the one part of this whole debacle that Charles would not allow. He starts off softly, not unkindly and almost wistful: "But for how long would you have stayed by my side? I always knew you would leave even before we went to Cuba. No. I could never bear the resentment you or Raven would have harboured because you stayed out of some misguided sympathy or loyalty.

"Who would want to look after a cripple when you set the world on fire and watch as it burns to ash?"

"Don’t you- I would have taken care of you because that is what I should have done in the first place.  Charles…"

Charles shakes his head, disbelieving of the arguments he is coming up with. "Could have, would have, should have. No Erik. I know my place and more than you can possibly imagine.  Tell me, is your anger serving you well?  How is the new world order taking in the superior mutant race that Shaw envisioned?"

"Don't you say his name ever again," the voice remarks coldly, the tone both sharp and severe and the threat hanging in the air between them.

Once, Charles may have stopped, may have found some other way to placate but not any more. Instead he scoffs tauntingly, "You don't see it, do you? He fashioned you for this very purpose and you walked right into it, becoming _exactly_ what he wanted. I endeavoured to keep you from that path but I'm sure Shaw would be so very proud of you had he been alive."

The frame of his wheelchair shakes harder and it causes Charles’ smile to turn gentle, almost nostalgic.

“Sometimes I think of what I could have done to change the course of things: what I should have said differently or understood it the situation. Would I still have the use of my legs if I had agreed to join you? Thousands of men would have died at your hands.  Would it have been worth it to try another day to convince you that your path is wrong and that one extreme is no better than the other?” Charles pauses to swallow and wet his cracked lips. What an idealistic fool he had once been.

“I was so naïve to cling foolishly onto the slight possibility that you would see things my way at the very last second. So great was my faith in the goodness inside of you. We could have achieved greater things for mutants had we worked together. You know that too, don’t you?”

The voice doesn’t answer.

"I tried to fit myself into your shoes once, to walk in them and see things from your perspective.  Very difficult to pinpoint exactly when you shielded your thoughts behind that damned helmet.  I wonder what I would have done had I been successful in getting that helmet off and, oh the thought completely terrifies me,” Charles whispers and takes in a deep breath, imagining the kind of choice the younger version of himself would have had to make between saving lives and seizing Erik’s free will to ensure it.

“There were all those missiles in the air, hovering expectantly and waiting, so capable of destruction and all of them under your command.  I was so proud of you up until the moment you sent them back.  I thought that ‘yes, Erik finally sees things my way and the missiles will fall into the ocean’ and for that split moment I was so incredibly happy."

He wonders if Erik's face shifts during his words; Charles doesn't expect it to. All in his head, see.

"That day, you killed two people.  And even now, I don't know if you exist as a figment of my imagination.  You should have aimed for my head and not my spine with that bullet and put me out of my misery.  But, do carry on.  I’ve said my peace. Remind me of how useless I am to the three boys you also abandoned that day, how much of a burden I am to them every day and how ungrateful I have been when they still persist in making sure I'm still breathing when every day continues to be an uphill struggle."

His voice has gone a little hoarse now and Charles gropes by his side for the gin, uncapping the bottle by touch. His entire body buzzes, both from the alcohol and his vent, and it feels so good.

What he doesn't expect to happen next is the rush of thoughts that are suddenly aimed and projected at him, a concoction of intoxicating emotions and brilliance. The loud clang of something metal hitting the porch fades into the background and Charles' eyes snap open in surprise when he finds Erik kneeled in front of him with his forehead buried against unfeeling thighs.

"I'm sorry, Charles.  I am so sorry." 

Charles is buffeted by the regret and sorrow that Erik sends and he keeps himself perfectly poised.

« Sorry will never bring my legs back » Charles thinks calmly as he tentatively reaches out to comb his fingers through Erik's hair, half expecting Erik to jerk away.  When he doesn’t, Charles comments out loud, "Your hair has gotten longer." His hand pets the auburn strands on the top of Erik's head that glint with a hint of ginger in the setting sun.

« I am a broken man, Erik, and you have a glorious world out there waiting for you. »

Erik looks up, eyes narrowed. « I want you by my side, you know that right?  We want the same thing, Charles. » His words are accompanied by a montage of warm memories, of his own youthful face and of their stolen moments alone before everything fell down around their ears.

Charles brushes his thumb over one of Erik's temples, noticing the way Erik stiffens with a cruel sort of satisfaction.  He sighs, long and defeated. “Your new mutant world was never designed with me in mind.  I would never fit into a world where telepathy is the only gift to be shunned amongst the homo superior. What use am I to you now?  You have another telepath that renders me obsolete, so obviously you don't want me for my mind. And you’ve hardly been interested in my talk of genetic diversity even though it is fundamental to ensure the survival of the species.”

“I can't walk, so what kind of sparring partner would I be?” His hands brush against Erik’s eyebrow thoughtfully and smiles when Erik leans into his touch like a cat seeking affection. “And I can hardly imagine you would want for a bed warmer ever again.  I can't even get an erection and that's not from a lack of trying."

« Charles » Erik breathes and lifts his head up, eyes a swirl of grey on green. It never fails to take Charles' breath away how Erik could convey so much with so little said. « I never wanted to see you get hurt and I will always want you by my side. You are the better part of me and the most precious thing to me. I don’t want you just because you're a telepath or brilliant or beautiful, but yes, because you are all those things too. »

Charles is unsure how he should be reacting and settles for saying nothing at all.

"Come with me Charles," Erik says as he straightens up, his hands braced on either side of Charles' chair. « You can return whenever you like to Westchester but I have a feeling you won't. Not for a while at least. I have so many things to show you. » His face moves closer and their noses casually brush.

« I could wipe your memory of everything that you know with just a single thought », Charles warns. He tries to back away from Erik’s advance but he has nowhere else to go.

« You could, but you won't » Erik replies easily, remember words from what feels like an eon ago. His thoughts betray him, terrified and excited as he always was when Charles uses his ability. « It’s funny how our roles seem to be reversed now. You should tell me to stop before I kiss you. »

This close Charles can smell the aftershave Erik uses and he tries not to squirm in his seat.  « No, I shan't think I will.  But I will only go with you if you convince the boys. » There is a small minute twitch of the corner of his lips.

« Ah. Well then. » Erik sounds amused as their mouths finally slant over one another in a kiss that warms Charles down to his bones. « The world waits for no man and your chariot awaits. »


End file.
